A place for a tired old woman to try to figure things out so that the world makes a bit of sense.

Friday, October 26, 2012

And Some Are Scum

(Editorial cartoon by Glenn McCoy / Belleville News-Democrat (October 25, 2012) and featured at McClatchy DC. Click on image to enlarge, although I don't see why you'd want to.)

As you've probably noticed over the past several months, I've indulged my love for editorial/political cartoons on this blog. I've always posted those that really tickled me, that really cut through the bovine excrement being spread by the rest of the mainstream media outlets to get at the truth of what's going on. It occurred to me that I wasn't presenting a complete picture. You see, the conservatives and Reich Wing have their cartoonists as well, and Mr. McCoy is one of them.

I've selected this cartoon of his to show just how the worst of the wurst operate.

OK, the main reference is to the Three Wise Monkeys aphorism, one that we're all familiar with. Here's the thing, though, it's the Three Monkeys, not the Three Wise Apes or the Three Wise Chimpanzees. The aphorism is Asian and it's clear what is intended. This graphic from Japan makes my point. Notice the ears.

And you might want to notice the ears of this picture of one of my favorite species, spider monkeys. Here also the ears are close to the head, not sticking out.

The ears sticking out are usually associated with apes and chimpanzees. Liberal cartoonists had a field day with that when it came to George W. Bush, whose ears did stick out. A whole lot of my liberal friends referred to him as "Chimpy" because of that. And, to be fair, President Obama has acknowledged that his ears have been a life-long challenge for the same reason.

So what's my beef with Mr. McCoy's cartoon?

Well, I have several of them.

The first is easy. The mainstream media and the lame stream media at FOX and AM talk radio have been screaming about Obama's obfuscation of what happened at the Libyan embassy since it happened, even though it's clear that the administration has been forthcoming with the information they had as soon as it was received, even though some of the information was partial. There has been no silencing on the issue, just a whole hell of a lot of mis-reporting all the way around.

The second is that we just had a debate on foreign policy and Mr. McCoy's candidate was noticeably silent on the issue of Benghazi. He was too busy agreeing with President Obama's foreign policy in most respects, that is, when he wasn't talking about Mali and a really geographically-challenged view of the Middle East. I guess Mr. McCoy was left hanging, so he went for what he thought was low-hanging fruit.

Which brings me to the third beef: this isn't an example of a racist dog-whistle. Oh, no. Not at all. It's a freaking FOG HORN.

The use of the chimp image is one thing, which is still enough to make my tin-foil chapeau vibrating. It's the brown hand reaching down from the upper right hand corner of the cartoon. This BLACK MAN is in the WHITE MAN's house and he's screwing things up for WHITE MEN.

And the thing is, a picture really is worth more than a thousand words and this cartoon will reach a lot of people in the heartland. That's the power of cartoonists.